› Articles
Hanging by a ThreadA US publishing conglomerate shoots—and misses
|
||||||
|
On April 26, 2002, 19-year-old Robert Steinhaeuser walked into his high school in Erfurt, Germany, armed with a 9mm Glock pistol and a 20-gauge pump-action shotgun. He proceeded to blow away 13 teachers, two students and a policewoman before turning one of the guns on himself. Until Robert Steinhaeuser, school violence had been obsessively documented by the European media as a uniquely American phenomenon—this despite the fact that there had been at least five prior incidents of gun-related deaths in European schools since 1996. Just as editorial pages across the continent began filling up with the inevitable are-we-turning-into-America debates, Eastern Europe had its first school shooting. Three days after the Erfurt massacre, 17-year-old Dragoslav Petkovic walked into his school in the tiny town of Vlasenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina and assassinated two teachers before killing himself. Coinciding with the European focus on school violence was the publication of American author Dennis Cooper’s latest novel. My Loose Thread is a psychological tour de force that takes the reader inside the head of Larry, a sexually confused, psychopathic high school student. Throughout, it seems that Larry is about to snap at any moment. My Loose Thread reads as a first-person account of his unraveling. As the book opens, Larry has just been offered $500 by the leader of a teenage neo-Nazi group to murder one of their fellow students and obtain the boy’s notebook. Larry’s alcoholic mother and cancer-stricken father are largely absent from the narrative. He frequently sneaks into bed with his 13-year-old brother, Jim, with whom he’s obsessed, and wonders if this means he’s gay. When Rand, one of Larry’s friends, finds out about the incestuous relationship, he tells Larry it’s “sick.” Larry punches Rand in the face; Rand dies shortly after of apparently natural causes, but Larry is constantly haunted by guilt. Coming to terms with the implications of his own existence, Larry feels emotionally dead, when he’s not drunk. Alcohol dulls the overflowing rage that he finds increasingly difficult to restrain as he lashes out at the world, up until the bloody Columbine-style conclusion, which surprisingly leaves Larry behind as a passive observer. Like William S. Burroughs, a writer he’s often compared to, Cooper, 50, is something of an anomaly in the increasingly conservative mainstream publishing industry. He attained notoriety in the ‘90s with a five-novel cycle featuring intensely emotional scenes of sexual violence in a world that seems half real and half imaginary, populated with stoned teenage boys and older, predatory men. His work was attacked by a stunned literary establishment as an amoral exploration of disembowelment, drugs, incest, kiddie porn and snuff. Written in minimalist prose, marked by terse, obsessively crafted sentences bordering on reportage, Cooper’s books are often narrated by teenagers who mask their brilliance behind a wall of fucked-upness, yet somehow manage to create poetry out of this imbalance. Along with the controversy, the novels earned Cooper a devoted cult following. He attained the enviable position of being successful without having to compromise his vision. Thus it came as a surprise—to the author as much as anyone—that the comparatively tame My Loose Thread is the novel that nearly ruined Cooper’s career before it was even published. “My original intention was to write a nonfiction book analyzing the school-shooting phenomenon in America,” Cooper says by phone from his home in Los Angeles. “At that point, it seemed like the book would be more sociological, a critique of consumerism, among other things. “I was doing lots of research, but the turning point came when I saw [a US public-television] special on [American school shooter] Kip Kinkle. At the end of it, they played his confession, and it just broke me. I was bawling my eyes out.” |
| Page 1, 2, 3 next » |
Article added on Mon 7th Apr, 2003 [last updated Thu 6th Oct, 2005]Share this page 
|
| COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE | ||
| READ ALL ART AND CULTURE ARTICLES MORE ART AND CULTURE ARTICLES |
|
Interview: Al Di Meola by Frank Kuznik American Jazz Guitarist Added on Fri 11th May, 2012 (Last updated Fri 11th May, 2012) |
|
Cycle to Work Campaign by www.dopracenakole.net Alernative Commuting Added on Mon 16th Apr, 2012 (Last updated Mon 16th Apr, 2012) |
|
Prague Youth Theatre Summer Courses by Prague Youth Theatre Press Release Added on Thu 12th Apr, 2012 |
|
Review: The Eden Game by Sam Beckwith Staged Reading of Havel Play Added on Sun 1st Apr, 2012 (Last updated Mon 23rd Apr, 2012) |
|
Ladies Only by Lucie Kavanová Women-Only Train Compartments Added on Thu 16th Feb, 2012 (Last updated Thu 16th Feb, 2012) |
|
Interview: Jean-Paul Bourelly of the Black Stone Raiders by Frank Kuznik Jazz/Blues Guitarist Added on Tue 7th Feb, 2012 (Last updated Tue 7th Feb, 2012) |
|
In the Name of Havel by Ivana Svobodová Renaming Czech Streets Added on Fri 13th Jan, 2012 (Last updated Fri 13th Jan, 2012) |
|
Steamin' on the Piazzeta by Mary Matz Národní Divadlo Piazzeta Sauna Added on Tue 27th Dec, 2011 (Last updated Tue 27th Dec, 2011) |
|
Commentary: Art and Democracy Sent to Prison by Erik Tabery Roman Týc & Ztohoven Added on Tue 20th Dec, 2011 (Last updated Tue 20th Dec, 2011) |
|
Pacey: Doing It My Way by PTV Staff Paul Pacey Interview Added on Fri 16th Dec, 2011 (Last updated Tue 20th Dec, 2011) |
|
The Nightlife of a Great Yogi by Petr Tøešòak Swami Maheshvarananda Sex Scandal Added on Mon 12th Dec, 2011 (Last updated Mon 12th Dec, 2011) |
|
Follow-Up: Who's Afraid of Alexei Zakharov? by Hana Èápová Dolní Olešnice Update Added on Tue 6th Dec, 2011 (Last updated Tue 6th Dec, 2011) |
|
Quiet Revolution by Mary Matz How Ballet is Changing Added on Thu 24th Nov, 2011 (Last updated Thu 24th Nov, 2011) |
|
The Best Prague Blogs in the English Language by Isabella Woods Expat Blogosphere Added on Thu 17th Nov, 2011 (Last updated Thu 17th Nov, 2011) |
|
The Beauty of Dumplings by Lucie Kavanová Knedlíky Láznièka Added on Thu 17th Nov, 2011 (Last updated Thu 17th Nov, 2011) |
| READ ALL ART AND CULTURE ARTICLES |
Visit the Art and Culture main page
Find listings, help forums, tips and more
Galeria Harfa
The biggest shopping & administration mall in Prague
Ristorante Soave
La cucina italiana
Century 21
World Leader in Real Estate
MORE ARTICLES
Prague TV Home | Contact | About | FAQ | Site Map | Search | Advertise | Privacy | Terms of Service
Prague TV is a Real Time Production. ©2012 All rights reserved.
